Perfect Dark
Encyclopedia
Perfect Dark is a first-person shooter
video game developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64
video game console
. It is considered the spiritual successor to Rare's earlier first-person shooter GoldenEye 007, with which it shares many gameplay features. Perfect Dark was first released in Canada and the United States in May 2000, where it was greeted with critical acclaim; PAL
and NTSC-J
releases followed soon afterwards. A remake, also titled Perfect Dark
, with enhanced graphics, online multiplayer and some other minor changes was exclusively released as an Xbox Live Arcade
game for the Xbox 360
on March 17, 2010.
The game features a single-player mode consisting of seventeen missions in which the player assumes the role of special agent
Joanna Dark, an operative for the fictional Carrington Institute, as she attempts to stop a conspiracy by rival corporation dataDyne. It also features a range of multiplayer options, including co-operative
and "counter-operative" modes in addition to traditional deathmatch
settings. Technically, it is one of the most advanced games developed for the Nintendo 64, with optional high-resolution
graphics and Dolby Surround Sound
. A Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak is required to access the game's campaign and most of the multiplayer features.
A separate Game Boy Color
game set in the same fictional universe
, also titled Perfect Dark, was released shortly afterwards in August 2000 as a supplement to the Nintendo 64 game. With the use of the Transfer Pak, the Game Boy Color game allows certain features within the Nintendo 64 game to alternatively be unlocked. Perfect Dark sold two and a half million units worldwide and its success has led to the development of the Perfect Dark franchise
, including the 2005 video game prequel Perfect Dark Zero
and other types of merchandise such as novel
s and American comic books.
-like extraterrestrials who use a holographic disguise to appear as Scandinavian
humans, bearing similarities to Nordic aliens
. Using this disguise, they can interact with humans on Earth
without looking too overtly suspicious. Meanwhile on Earth, there is an on-going rivalry between two factions: The Carrington Institute, a R&D
center founded by Daniel Carrington that secretly operates an espionage group in league with the Maians; and dataDyne, a sinister defense contractor
corporation led by Cassandra De Vries, who secretly made a deal with a group of Scandinavians: she agreed to assist them in constructing an AI
to crack
the codes of a "Cetan" alien ship buried on the ocean floor. In return, the Scandinavians promised to supply them with enough alien technology to become the biggest corporation on Earth.
The player is cast as Joanna Dark, an agent of the Carrington Institute, whose impeccable scores in training have earned her the codename "Perfect Dark". On her first mission, she is sent to rescue a scientist named Dr. Caroll from the dataDyne skyscraper
. It is revealed that Dr. Caroll is in fact the AI created by dataDyne, who felt that dataDyne had betrayed ethical and moral standards. After the operation, Carrington is held captive at his private villa by dataDyne soldiers and forced to tell them where Dr. Caroll has been hidden. Once Joanna rescues Carrington, he informs her that Dr. Caroll has been taken to the G5 Corporation headquarters in Chicago
, which is suspected to be a front for dataDyne. In Chicago, Joanna learns that dataDyne and their conspirators plan to kidnap the President of the United States in order to get access to a deep sea research vessel which will allow the conspirators to reach the Cetan ship. Despite the President being in danger, Carrington alerts Joanna that a Maian craft was shot down near Area 51
and sends her to rescue any survivors from the base. While inside the base, she rescues one survivor, a Maian Protector named Elvis who is key in stopping the conspiracy.
As the President of the United States refuses to loan dataDyne the research vessel, the conspirators plot to kill him and replace him with a dataDyne-grown clone. To accomplish their plans, an NSA strike team led by Trent Easton invades the air base where Air Force One
will be departing from. When Joanna foils this strike, the NSA along with some Scandinavians take over the plane itself, which crashes after an attempt to detach a craft attached to it. Having survived the crash, Joanna eliminates the president's clone and rescues the real president. Due to his failure to kill the president, Easton is killed by one particular Scandinavian known as Mr. Blonde, who turns out to be a Skedar. Unbeknownst to dataDyne, the Carrington Institute learns that the Cetan ship contains a megaweapon and that the conspirators are actually Skedar aliens disguised as Scandinavian humans who intend to test the weapon on the Earth before using it against the Maian homeworld.
Without permission from the president, dataDyne blindly elect to hijack the deep sea vessel and take it to the ancient alien spacecraft. Joanna and Elvis follow where they find a reprogrammed Dr. Caroll decoding the megaweapon. Joanna replaces its current personality with a backup of the original, and the restored Dr. Carroll sets the weapon to self-destruct. In retaliation, the Skedar later launch a strike on the Carrington Institute, capturing Joanna and taking her to their homeworld. While in the spaceship, she is met by Cassandra, who has also been imprisoned due to her failure to comply with the deal. Feeling that she has been used, Cassandra makes a distraction by sacrificing herself, freeing Joanna and therefore giving herself a chance for revenge. Joanna is later assisted by Elvis and both manage to land on the Skedar planet. There, she defeats the Skedar High Priest, leaving the Skedar in disarray. The game ends with Elvis and Joanna leaving the planet just prior to an orbital bombardment from the Maian navy.
game, including a range of weapons to collect, enemies to defeat and distinct environments to explore. Although Perfect Dark is not set in the James Bond
universe, the gameplay is extremely similar to that of its predecessor and many features were retained, such as the ability to use stealth to tackle missions, and objectives that vary with the difficulty setting.
The weapons of Perfect Dark include handgun
s, rifle
s, submachine gun
s, a shotgun
, rocket launchers, combat knives
, grenade launcher
s, various explosives
, and several extraterrestrial weapons. Almost all of the weapons in the game have two modes of fire: a primary mode in which the weapon is used in a typical fashion, and a secondary mode which tends to use the weapon in a more unconventional manner, such as pistol-whipping
or proximity detonation. Players can carry an unlimited number of weapons, and certain guns can be used in duplicate, one in each hand. Unlike in GoldenEye 007, where the guns were simply dipped below vision during reloading, Perfect Darks weapons all feature unique and visible reload sequences.
. The most substantial of these activities is the firing range
, in which the player's proficiency with each of the game's weapons is tested against specific targets. Completing these trials unlocks so-called "Classic Weapons", which are renamed versions of weapons from GoldenEye 007.
In Perfect Darks solo missions, the player controls Joanna through a series of levels
collected together into missions. In each level, the player must complete certain objectives and then exit the stage. The requirements are varied, with many levels requiring the recovery and use of numerous high-tech gadgets. If Joanna is killed or fails an objective, the player must start the level again. Any level can be completed through three distinct difficulty settings (Agent, Special Agent or Perfect Agent), and several aspects, such as the number of objectives that must be completed, the amount of ammunition available, and enemy accuracy and damage, can vary in function of the chosen difficulty. On higher difficulties, the optional "auto-aiming", in which the game corrects slight aiming errors automatically, becomes less effective and bonus items such as protective shields are absent in order to increase the challenge. Once the game has been completed on one difficulty level, the levels can be tackled in any order on the other difficulties, apart from the final mission of the main story arc, which can only be played at a given difficulty after all other missions have been beaten on that difficulty. If all the levels are completed on Perfect Agent difficulty, an additional setting becomes available, titled Perfect Dark. Like the "007" option in GoldenEye 007, this mode allows the player to customise various aspects of enemies, such as their health, their aiming accuracy and the damage they inflict.
Four bonus missions may be unlocked by the player. One, "The Duel", is a holographic training simulation against three opponents, and is unlocked by completing all of the entry-level weapon challenges in the firing range. The other three bonus missions are unlocked by completing the game on each of the three standard difficulties, and allow the player to control other characters — Elvis, Mr. Blonde and a Maian warrior — in scenarios parallel to the main narrative. The gameplay is essentially unchanged, with objectives to accomplish and enemies to battle, but these characters do have some special characteristics, such as Mr. Blonde's cloaking device
. Players can also unlock cheats by beating the levels within certain time limits. Some cheats, such as "All Weapons", can alternatively be unlocked by using the Perfect Dark Game Boy Color
game and Transfer Pak. The cheats range from "Perfect Darkness", which makes the level pitch dark but gives the player a pair of night vision goggles, to more traditional extras such as Unlimited Ammo.
The game includes a co-operative mode
in which two players, or one player and up to three computer-controlled players, can tackle the missions together. If two humans play, the game uses a split screen
display, with the option to split horizontally or vertically. Only one human player is required to survive the mission, although all the objectives must still be completed. Additionally, the game also features a "Counter Op" mode, in which one player plays the missions as Joanna while the other takes over the role of an enemy — including their weaponry and low health — and attempts to stop her. The Counter Op player takes control of another enemy if they are killed, and cannot cause the mission to fail directly by, for example, killing Joanna's allies before she meets them.
There are numerous easter eggs
and strange objects, areas and glitches to fuel the exploration efforts and wild speculation of many gamers. Perhaps the most famous curiosity is the piece of cheese hidden on every level. These were intended to be collectible items, although the purpose of collecting them has never been revealed. This idea was scrapped, but the cheese remained. The face of celebrity Nintendo fan Robin Williams
was used for Daniel Carrington. The face of Shigeru Miyamoto
along with faces of other Nintendo executives and games journalists can be seen on minor characters such as enemy guards in the missions and as selectable avatars in the multiplayer mode.
Scenarios range from the traditional deathmatch
mode, where players score points by killing their respective enemies, to popular objective-based games, such as Capture the Flag or King of the Hill
. Also notable are Hold the Briefcase, where players must take a briefcase and survive with it for as long as possible. Points are received for every set number of seconds the case is held and, if the player with it is killed, the briefcase is dropped and can be picked by anyone else; or Hacker Central, where players score points by hacking a computer system using a data uplink. Although both the data uplink and computer system are randomly placed in the level, the data uplink can be moved to a new location if the player carrying it is killed; and Pop a Cap, in which one player is labeled as the target, and the other players go after him. The target receives a point for every 60 seconds they stay alive. If the hunters kill the target, they receive two points and the targeted player changes.
Aspects of each game can be customised, such as the chosen arena, the weapons available, and the winning conditions. Players can be grouped into teams or compete individually. In a team game, the players can optionally be shown coloured according to their team. Each game can be customised to a greater degree than was possible in GoldenEye 007s widely acclaimed multiplayer mode. For example, the earlier game only allowed players to specify a pre-set class of weapons, such as "Automatics", but in Perfect Dark, players can individually select the weapons to be included and where each should be located. Shields may be placed in any of the weapon slots or omitted entirely; GoldenEye 007s body armour
was fixed in one position for each level.
Computer controlled bots
, called "Simulants", can be included in the multiplayer game. The appearance, team affiliation, skill level and playing characteristics of each Simulant can be individually customised. For example, the VengeSim always pursues the player that killed it last, the FistSim will not fire guns but will attack with punches and thrown weapons, while the PeaceSim does not fight at all but merely tries to disarm the other players. Simulants can perform super-human feats on the highest difficulty settings, such as moving faster than the player can. During team matches, a human player can issue specific orders to the Simulants on their team, such as "Defend the Base". The Combat Simulator also includes thirty "Challenges", pre-set games against Simulants which may be tackled by one or more players. The Challenges cover a variety of game types, weapon arrangements and level setups. As a player completes them, additional features — including new weapons, player models and bot difficulties — are unlocked in the Combat Simulator.
At the end of a match, the overall results are shown, alongside information about the individual players' performance. Color-coded "medals" are awarded to the winners in several categories: Accuracy, Head Shots, KillMaster (for achieving the most kills) and Survivor (for suffering the fewest deaths). The game also acknowledges, often humorously, other aspects of performance by awarding messages such as "Best Protected" (for people who frequently use body armour) and "Mostly Harmless" (for particularly ineffective players). Players can also keep track of their performance by creating and saving multiplayer profiles, which also allow players to customise their in-game appearance by selecting the head and body of any of the game's character models (excluding the Skedar), as well as several which do not appear in the single-player mode. Additionally, each profile contains a ranking, ranging from "Beginner: 21" to "Perfect: 1", which is determined based on the accumulation of certain statistics such as number of kills, time played, ammunition used or number of medals earned. A player achieving the rank of "Perfect: 1" is given the message "Username: Entropic
Decay, Password: Zero-Tau
." Rare had originally intended these details to allow access to password-protected parts of the official Perfect Dark website, but these sections were never implemented.
Martin Hollis
, the director of GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark, described the development of the game in an interview with Retro Gamer
magazine, later republished online by NowGamer. He explained that Rare rejected the prospect of working on the GoldenEye sequel Tomorrow Never Dies
"without hesitation", as the development team felt they had spent too much time immersed in the James Bond universe. The decision to make the central character a woman was part of Hollis' belief that there "should be more games centred on women". He also observed that they "wanted her to be quite normal, not with supermodel looks, perhaps a little androgynous
." To this end, the team created Joanna Dark, influenced by a number of other fictional heroines: Kim Kimberly from Level 9 Computing
's text adventure Snowball, the seductive spy Agent X-27 in the 1930s film Dishonored
, the eponymous femme fatale
of the film Nikita, and FBI agent Dana Scully
from television series The X-Files
. The name "Joanna Dark" was taken from the French pronunciation of Joan of Arc
as "Jeanne d'Arc".
Ghost in the Shell
was a major influence on the character, setting and plot. The name of the in-game company "dataDyne" was inspired by Yoyodyne
from The Crying of Lot 49
by Thomas Pynchon
. Another significant influence on the game's locations was the work of author Philip K. Dick
. Hollis explained that he and designer David Doak "picked a range of locations we thought would be impressive and architectural, on the model of GoldenEye but sci-fi dystopia
s... The settings came first; the plot was then constructed by Dave to sew them together". The word "Dark" was chosen for its association with the game's bleak focus on killing. Hollis has noted the similarities to Criterion Software's naming of Black
: "Game developers just like black, nihilism, dystopian futures, the number zero, infinity, spheres, perfection—all that kind of stuff."
The "double slash" symbol in the game's logo was inspired by the Japanese dakuten
mark, and the bad grammar of the phrase "Perfect Dark" alludes in some degree to Hollis' affection for the way the Japanese use English words in their own games. At one time, Nintendo of Japan
considered releasing the game there under the title . "Perfect Dark" does not translate well into Japanese, and the title "Aka to Kuro" was considered sufficiently edgy. However, it was eventually released as , a transliteration of the Western title.
Originally Hollis hoped that the difference between light and dark would be a significant feature of the gameplay, and the title was intended to reflect this focus. A flashlight
was implemented by Steve Ellis, who had been responsible for much of the multiplayer mode in GoldenEye, but it was not included in the final game due to the limitations of the N64 hardware (see Game engine section). Hollis remarked that such aims were overambitious: "Even today, you can see game developers struggle to make light and dark foundational from a gameplay perspective. I suspect it will take a few years before significant and pervasive gameplay innovation occurs here." Although not all these intended features were realised, the game does contain more advanced lighting than GoldenEye; lights can be shot out, gunfire illuminates rooms, and the player can use infra-red and night vision goggles
.
Martin Hollis was involved with Perfect Dark for the first fourteen months of its three-year development, during which progress was troubled and long delayed. He explained, "each of us was asking for more than the other could give. This situation ended with my departure, and with very deep regret I was unable to see Perfect Dark to completion". David Doak also left at the end of 1998, and Steve Ellis soon after, to form Free Radical Design
. What followed by those remaining on the project was a comprehensive re-design of the game, with the story and characters being the main items kept intact. Hollis stated that he was impressed by the comprehensive range of multiplayer options, saying "what a vast array of features I never planned". Doak, however, remarked, "GoldenEye pretty much exhausted the performance of the machine. It was hard to push it further. Perfect Dark had some good ideas but was dog slow."
A feature called "Perfect Head", which appeared in previews of the game but was not included in the final product, was intended to take customisation of multiplayer profiles further. This feature allowed the player to place a photograph of their choice onto their in-game character's face, via a Game Boy Camera
combined with the Nintendo 64
Transfer Pak. The images taken would be uploaded to the cartridge and manipulated with a simple image editing program to adjust color and skin tone (as the Game Boy Camera was black and white) and add facial features such as facial hair. This texture could then be saved to either the cartridge or a Controller Pak and then loaded onto a player's character in multiplayer, thus creating a virtual representation of the player. Although Rare officially said that the feature was dropped due to "technical issues", the real reason was revealed to be "sensitive issues" surrounding the ability to attack images of real people.
is a modified version of that of GoldenEye 007, and many of the gameplay features are unchanged. For instance, the manual aiming system, originally inspired by Sega
's Virtua Cop
, is graphically enhanced but essentially the same. Players can crouch, duck and lean but notably there is still no ability to jump. Despite this, it is possible to drop from most ledges, a feature rarely used in GoldenEye 007. Most weapons have a finite magazine
and must be reloaded after a certain number of shots. Interaction with the environment is via a single "Use" command, which opens doors, activates computers and so on. Enemies and players can disarm each other at close range, and the player can use this feature to steal weapons or knock foes unconscious. Like GoldenEye, Perfect Dark uses location-based damage; for example, a shot to the torso causes more damage than a shot to a limb. However, unlike GoldenEye, in the single-player mode a head shot on a guard is instantly fatal on any difficulty level.
The engine also includes a number of graphical enhancements, the most conspicuous of which is the option to play in hi-res
640x480 graphics. The Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak is needed to access the game's campaign and most of the multiplayer features, although a limited subset of the Combat Simulator options are available without the device (around 35% of the game is playable without an Expansion Pak, as estimated on the game's box and Instruction Booklet). The lighting
system was improved so that gunfire and explosions illuminate areas dynamically, and lights can be shot out to create darkened areas. Further progressions from GoldenEye include weapon-specific reloading animations, and more elaborate gore
effects which allow gunshots to project enemies' blood onto nearby walls and objects. Another graphical novelty is the "dizziness" effect; if a player is punched, poisoned by a throwing knife
or shot with the Tranquilizer gun, their nausea is represented through a motion blur
red view. The degree of blurring increases with dizziness, and a badly stunned player may have difficulty seeing anything at all. The disadvantage of such detailed graphics is that the frame rate
inevitably suffers in some areas; this was one of the main criticisms levelled at the game by reviewers (see Reception section). The same limitation was present in GoldenEye, but the other graphical enhancements in Perfect Dark serve to exacerbate the problem. In multiplayer, the game must render
the scene separately for each player, although at reduced resolution. Nevertheless the frame rate issues arise again, particularly if a large number of Simulants are involved.
Perfect Darks engine offered audio features that had not been available on the N64 before; for example, it was one of the few games to offer Dolby Surround Sound
. Some of the game's audio data was compressed into MP3
format in order to fit into the relatively small storage space afforded by a cartridge, though the music was sequenced. There is full voice-acting for all the dialogue, and the guards can be heard having conversations amongst themselves about the events of the level. Additionally, both NTSC
and PAL
N64 systems run the game in full screen, without the "letterbox
ing" seen in many PAL releases, and there is a 16:9
option for use on widescreen
televisions.
The artificial intelligence of the guards includes the ability to call for help and sound nearby alarms. The guards can be alerted by nearby gunfire, and the various weapons in the game have distinct volumes; for example, guards are less likely to be alerted by suppressed pistols than powerful rifles. Additionally, they are able to throw grenades and, if the player disarms them, draw a secondary weapon. One criticism raised of GoldenEye 007s guards was their weakness at very close range, since their weapons appear to shoot straight through the player. This is resolved in Perfect Dark, whose guards can deliver punches and kicks at close range, inflicting damage and causing dizziness. In GoldenEye, the guards could not see through glass — a feature included deliberately so that the player could spy on foes through windows. This aspect is retained in Perfect Dark, although enemies can now see and shoot over railings. In the later stages of the game, the player encounters Skedar enemies still in reptilian form, and while the Skedar weapons and characteristics are different, their AI is qualitatively the same. The multiplayer Simulants are also considerably more advanced, and exhibit faculties similar to those of a human player but with some limitations. For example, they have the ability to complete multiplayer objectives, such as capturing the briefcase, but they are not able to use some of the weapons, such as remote mines. Also, simulants make no attempt to avoid simple traps such as proximity mines or sentry guns, even on the highest skill setting.
There are a number of bugs
and technical issues in the game engine. For example, in the first level, a flaw in the level geometry makes it possible to pass through a supposedly solid wall, allowing the level to be completed on the easiest difficulty in just a few seconds. Also, as with many older FPSs, players can use a technique called straferunning (or "speed-strafing") to exploit a bug in the engine whereby moving diagonal
ly allows the player to move faster than by running forwards or sideways alone. This technique is almost essential to achieving some of the target times required to unlock cheats.
predicting that it would be "the best shooting game this century". A working version of the game appeared at the European Computer Trade Show
1998; N64 Magazine described the preview as having "the kind of attention to detail that had everyone who saw [it] drooling". Shortly before release, Rare unveiled a number of websites for companies in the game's universe, such as datadyne.com, to promote interest in the game's storyline.
Unlike GoldenEye 007, the game received an M (Mature) rating due to its graphic content and adult language. This caused some controversy, as Nintendo has a reputation for family-friendly games like Mario
and Pokémon
. The first release of the game came on May 22, 2000 in North America. Nintendo arranged a number of publicity stunts to promote the release, including hiring model Michele Merkin
, who appeared as the lead character Joanna Dark in commercials and in-store promotions for the game cartridge. Total sales for the game reached 1.3 million copies in the United States. The European release followed on 30 June, and finally the game was released in Japan on 21 October. The Japanese launch was a success, with the sale of 35,000 copies in the first week, and 77,000 in total. Worldwide, Perfect Dark sold 2.5 million copies. As a result, a Player's Choice edition was released in 2001.
A separate Game Boy Color
game set in the same fictional universe
, also titled Perfect Dark, was released shortly afterwards in August 2000 to help promote the Nintendo 64 game. While its storyline is different from the Nintendo 64 title, the game does feature a compatibility mode that allows certain features within the Nintendo 64 game to alternatively be unlocked, via a Transfer Pak. On the other hand, a double
soundtrack album
, titled Perfect Dark: Dual CD Soundtrack, which features the complete score of the game, was released on November 15, 2000 exclusively through Nintendo Power
magazine.
's Joe Fielder awarded the game a rating of 9.9 out of 10, making it the highest-reviewed first-person shooter of the site. He commented, "As a single-player or multiplayer FPS experience, Perfect Dark is unparalleled on the console systems". Patrick Klepek of Gaming Age described it as "probably one of the best FPSs to be released in quite a while", while Chi Kong Lui of Game Critics criticised the "weak characters and an unoriginal storyline," but nevertheless judged the "extraordinary amount of high-quality multiplayer modes and features", meant that "the game is still a blast."
The graphics were praised for their dynamic lighting, crisp and varied textures. Aaron Daigle of Game Chronicles enjoyed the "smoothly animated" characters and their location-dependent hit reactions. Similarly, IGN
's Matt Casamassina
observed that the new reload animations and blood effects on walls "are wonderfully animated". The audio was lauded, with Jonathan Nicklas of Gaming Target
comparing it favourably to that of Capcom
's survival horror title Resident Evil 2
. The voice cut-scenes, the amount of ambient noises, musical scores, and Dolby Surround Sound
capabilities were said to effectively bring the game to life. IGN went to say that the game "sounds terrific".
Gameplay was generally praised for the excellent artificial intelligence
of enemies, and complex and varied level design. Chi Kong Lui credited the missions for their "nice mix of timed, patterned, and random events that makes playing through them different and refreshing each time." The enemies were admired for their use of squad tactics, for waiting for the player to come back instead of obediently chasing after them, and for challenging players to duck around a corner for cover. In contrast, Game Revolution
considered that "the number of times you have a hallway filled with dead people is a little ridiculous." The multiplayer and replay value
were seen as the strongest elements of the game. Reviewers noted that the flexibility of options, amount of game modes, "clever" weapons, number of unlockable features, and customizable simulants, give the game "endless replay value". Chi Kong Lui wrote, "Perfect Dark is easily the most advance, elaborate, and entertaining multiplayer gaming experience on any home console."
One frequently-criticised aspect of the game was its low, inconsistent frame rate
. This flaw was mentioned in numerous reviews, and by Trigger Happy
author Steven Poole
, who noted, "The game's inadequate temporal resolution—owing to a wrongheaded choice to privilege visual detail over frame-rate—made it unplayable at higher difficulty levels." Poole also described the "lazy sci-fi fetishism" of Joanna Dark's character design as "a blatant and doomed attempt to steal the thunder of Lara Croft
," and argued that she illustrated the challenges of injecting characterisation into the protagonists of first-person shooters, which GoldenEye had avoided by using the already well-known character James Bond.
The overall positive reaction from critics can be gauged by the results of review compilation sites; the game has a Metacritic
rating of 97%, which is considered "universal acclaim", and a GameRankings ratio of 95% as of June 2007. Perfect Dark has also been featured in many "greatest game" lists. In 2006, the game placed 15th on IGN's "Readers Choice Top 100 Games Ever" list; also that year it was rated the 100th best game made on a Nintendo System in Nintendo Power
. In 2007, it placed 86th in IGN's "Top 100 Games of All Time", and 28th in Edges "100 Best Videogames" special issue (a list voted for by readers, Edge staff and gaming industry professionals). Rare was also recognized for its work on the game, as the company was awarded the BAFTA
Interactive Entertainment Moving Images Award for 2000 and the Golden Satellite Award for Best Interactive Product in 2001. Perfect Dark also received GameSpot's 2000 "Best Nintendo 64 game of the year" award.
Edge
published two retrospective articles on Perfect Dark in 2007 and 2008. The magazine acknowledged that the game's framerate and other dated elements of its design rendered it "nigh-on unplayable", but found its ambitious range of options still praiseworthy: "At release, Perfect Dark was the most comprehensive first-person shooter ever made, and in some ways it still is." Edge found the ambitious mentality which resulted in weapons and bots being "designed for possibilities rather than balance" both one of Perfect Darks most interesting aspects, and the cause of its biggest problem: "Restraint … would have made Perfect Dark a tighter, more focused experience, helped with those framerate issues, and removed almost all of the fun." The magazine concluded that despite Perfect Dark not standing up as a good game to play in 2008, "its currency of ideas and provocation … remains sound."
, at SpaceWorld 2000. The game was also the last appearance of the GoldenEye 007/Perfect Dark engine. Twenty months before Perfect Dark was released, some of the development team left Rare to form Free Radical Design
. This company went on to develop the PlayStation 2
game TimeSplitters
, another first-person shooter based around a completely new engine. TimeSplitters and its sequels
bear several gameplay and presentational similarities to GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark, including a wide range of weapons for multiplayer games, missions with structured objectives, and unlockable options through quick level completions.
Meanwhile Rare began development of a prequel titled Perfect Dark Zero
for the Nintendo GameCube. However, the company was purchased by Microsoft
in 2002, and as a result it was announced that Perfect Dark Zero would be an Xbox
title. Later it was decided that the game would instead be released for the Xbox 360
, and it became a launch title for that system. The game retains Perfect Darks first-person perspective and mission objective system, although other features were not carried over. Joanna Dark remains the lead character. The game's multiplayer mode allows many more computer players, thanks to the more advanced Xbox 360 hardware, and can also be played online (via Xbox Live
), which was not possible with the Nintendo 64. While Perfect Dark Zero generally received positive reviews from critics, some – such as Eurogamer
and Game Informer
– found it to be a disappointment.
Perfect Darks worldwide sales were not as great as its predecessor's 8 million, and Joanna Dark did not attain the same status in pop culture as other video game heroines such as Tomb Raider
s Lara Croft
. Nevertheless, the game's universe continued to be developed with the release of the novel Perfect Dark: Initial Vector, a Rare-sanctioned paperback by Greg Rucka
. The novel is set in the time between Perfect Dark Zero and Perfect Dark, and portrays Joanna Dark as an ex-bounty hunter drawn in to the Carrington Institute's battle with dataDyne through her own vendetta against the hyper-corporations. Rucka stated, "If you've played the first game, you're going to get a huge treat, because a lot of stuff that happens in Perfect Dark we set up in the novel." In 2007, two new titles were developed: the comic series Perfect Dark: Janus' Tears, written by Eric Trautmann
, and a second novel by Rucka titled Perfect Dark: Second Front, both of which are direct chronological sequels.
In 2010, Perfect Dark was re-made on the Xbox 360
as an Xbox Live Arcade
game, including reworked graphics and online features (see Perfect Dark XBLA
). The development was handled by 4J Studios
, the same studio that previously handled the Xbox Live Arcade ports
of Banjo-Kazooie
and Banjo-Tooie
. The remake was generally well-received: while some critics considered the relatively-unchanged game to be outdated, most agreed that the title was a great revival of a classic. Perfect Dark has also been re-made as a total conversion mod using Valve's Source engine, titled Perfect Dark: Source.
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
video game developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64
Nintendo 64
The , often referred to as N64, was Nintendo′s third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil...
video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
. It is considered the spiritual successor to Rare's earlier first-person shooter GoldenEye 007, with which it shares many gameplay features. Perfect Dark was first released in Canada and the United States in May 2000, where it was greeted with critical acclaim; PAL
PAL region
The PAL region is a television publication territory which covers most of Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Western Europe...
and NTSC-J
NTSC-J
NTSC-J is an analog television system and video display standard for the region of Japan.While NTSC-M is an official standard, "J" is more a colloquial indicator as used in Marketing definition but not an official term.-Technical definition:...
releases followed soon afterwards. A remake, also titled Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark (Xbox Live Arcade)
Perfect Dark is a remake of the critically acclaimed Nintendo 64 video game of the same name. Originally developed by Rare, it was ported by 4J Studios, published by Microsoft Game Studios, and was exclusively released as an Xbox Live Arcade game for the Xbox 360 on March 17, 2010...
, with enhanced graphics, online multiplayer and some other minor changes was exclusively released as an Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade is a type of video game download distribution available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360, that focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers...
game for the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
on March 17, 2010.
The game features a single-player mode consisting of seventeen missions in which the player assumes the role of special agent
Special agent
Special agent is usually the title for a detective or investigator for a state, county, municipal, federal or tribal government. An agent is a worker for any federal agency, and a secret agent is one who works for an intelligence agency....
Joanna Dark, an operative for the fictional Carrington Institute, as she attempts to stop a conspiracy by rival corporation dataDyne. It also features a range of multiplayer options, including co-operative
Cooperative gameplay
Cooperative gameplay is a feature in video games that allows players to work together as teammates. It is distinct from other multiplayer modes, such as competitive multiplayer modes like player versus player or deathmatch...
and "counter-operative" modes in addition to traditional deathmatch
Deathmatch (gaming)
Deathmatch or Player vs All is a widely-used gameplay mode integrated into many shooter and real-time strategy computer games...
settings. Technically, it is one of the most advanced games developed for the Nintendo 64, with optional high-resolution
Image resolution
Image resolution is an umbrella term that describes the detail an image holds. The term applies to raster digital images, film images, and other types of images. Higher resolution means more image detail....
graphics and Dolby Surround Sound
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...
. A Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak is required to access the game's campaign and most of the multiplayer features.
A separate Game Boy Color
Game Boy Color
The is Nintendo's successor to the 8-bit Game Boy handheld game console, and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 19, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in Europe and November 27, 1998 in the United Kingdom. It features a color screen and is slightly thicker and taller than...
game set in the same fictional universe
Fictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
, also titled Perfect Dark, was released shortly afterwards in August 2000 as a supplement to the Nintendo 64 game. With the use of the Transfer Pak, the Game Boy Color game allows certain features within the Nintendo 64 game to alternatively be unlocked. Perfect Dark sold two and a half million units worldwide and its success has led to the development of the Perfect Dark franchise
Perfect Dark (series)
Perfect Dark is a science fiction video game franchise created and developed by Rare. The series debuted with the Nintendo 64 video game Perfect Dark in 2000, which received strong acclaim from critics and players, leading to the franchise's expansion. In 2002, Rare was acquired by Microsoft Game...
, including the 2005 video game prequel Perfect Dark Zero
Perfect Dark Zero
Perfect Dark Zero is a first-person shooter video game developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The game had a difficult development cycle, during which a substantial part of it was initially designed for the Nintendo GameCube...
and other types of merchandise such as novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s and American comic books.
Plot
Perfect Dark is set in the year 2023 against the backdrop of an interstellar war between two races: the Maians, who resemble the stereotypical grey alien; and the Skedar, reptileReptile
Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...
-like extraterrestrials who use a holographic disguise to appear as Scandinavian
Scandinavians
Scandinavians are a group of Germanic peoples, inhabiting Scandinavia and to a lesser extent countries associated with Scandinavia, and speaking Scandinavian languages. The group includes Danes, Norwegians and Swedes, and additionally the descendants of Scandinavian settlers such as the Icelandic...
humans, bearing similarities to Nordic aliens
Nordic aliens
Nordic aliens are said by self-described contactees and some UFOlogists to be a group of humanoid extraterrestrials who resemble European racial images, or more specifically Nordic-Scandinavians....
. Using this disguise, they can interact with humans on Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
without looking too overtly suspicious. Meanwhile on Earth, there is an on-going rivalry between two factions: The Carrington Institute, a R&D
Research and development
The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
center founded by Daniel Carrington that secretly operates an espionage group in league with the Maians; and dataDyne, a sinister defense contractor
Defense contractor
A defense contractor is a business organization or individual that provides products or services to a military department of a government. Products typically include military aircraft, ships, vehicles, weaponry, and electronic systems...
corporation led by Cassandra De Vries, who secretly made a deal with a group of Scandinavians: she agreed to assist them in constructing an AI
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
to crack
Software cracking
Software cracking is the modification of software to remove or disable features which are considered undesirable by the person cracking the software, usually related to protection methods: copy protection, trial/demo version, serial number, hardware key, date checks, CD check or software annoyances...
the codes of a "Cetan" alien ship buried on the ocean floor. In return, the Scandinavians promised to supply them with enough alien technology to become the biggest corporation on Earth.
The player is cast as Joanna Dark, an agent of the Carrington Institute, whose impeccable scores in training have earned her the codename "Perfect Dark". On her first mission, she is sent to rescue a scientist named Dr. Caroll from the dataDyne skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
. It is revealed that Dr. Caroll is in fact the AI created by dataDyne, who felt that dataDyne had betrayed ethical and moral standards. After the operation, Carrington is held captive at his private villa by dataDyne soldiers and forced to tell them where Dr. Caroll has been hidden. Once Joanna rescues Carrington, he informs her that Dr. Caroll has been taken to the G5 Corporation headquarters in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, which is suspected to be a front for dataDyne. In Chicago, Joanna learns that dataDyne and their conspirators plan to kidnap the President of the United States in order to get access to a deep sea research vessel which will allow the conspirators to reach the Cetan ship. Despite the President being in danger, Carrington alerts Joanna that a Maian craft was shot down near Area 51
Area 51
Area 51 is a military base, and a remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base. It is located in the southern portion of Nevada in the western United States, 83 miles north-northwest of downtown Las Vegas. Situated at its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large military airfield...
and sends her to rescue any survivors from the base. While inside the base, she rescues one survivor, a Maian Protector named Elvis who is key in stopping the conspiracy.
As the President of the United States refuses to loan dataDyne the research vessel, the conspirators plot to kill him and replace him with a dataDyne-grown clone. To accomplish their plans, an NSA strike team led by Trent Easton invades the air base where Air Force One
Air Force One
Air Force One is the official air traffic control call sign of any United States Air Force aircraft carrying the President of the United States. In common parlance the term refers to those Air Force aircraft whose primary mission is to transport the president; however, any U.S. Air Force aircraft...
will be departing from. When Joanna foils this strike, the NSA along with some Scandinavians take over the plane itself, which crashes after an attempt to detach a craft attached to it. Having survived the crash, Joanna eliminates the president's clone and rescues the real president. Due to his failure to kill the president, Easton is killed by one particular Scandinavian known as Mr. Blonde, who turns out to be a Skedar. Unbeknownst to dataDyne, the Carrington Institute learns that the Cetan ship contains a megaweapon and that the conspirators are actually Skedar aliens disguised as Scandinavian humans who intend to test the weapon on the Earth before using it against the Maian homeworld.
Without permission from the president, dataDyne blindly elect to hijack the deep sea vessel and take it to the ancient alien spacecraft. Joanna and Elvis follow where they find a reprogrammed Dr. Caroll decoding the megaweapon. Joanna replaces its current personality with a backup of the original, and the restored Dr. Carroll sets the weapon to self-destruct. In retaliation, the Skedar later launch a strike on the Carrington Institute, capturing Joanna and taking her to their homeworld. While in the spaceship, she is met by Cassandra, who has also been imprisoned due to her failure to comply with the deal. Feeling that she has been used, Cassandra makes a distraction by sacrificing herself, freeing Joanna and therefore giving herself a chance for revenge. Joanna is later assisted by Elvis and both manage to land on the Skedar planet. There, she defeats the Skedar High Priest, leaving the Skedar in disarray. The game ends with Elvis and Joanna leaving the planet just prior to an orbital bombardment from the Maian navy.
Gameplay
Perfect Dark features many elements that are typical of a first-person shooterFirst-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
game, including a range of weapons to collect, enemies to defeat and distinct environments to explore. Although Perfect Dark is not set in the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
universe, the gameplay is extremely similar to that of its predecessor and many features were retained, such as the ability to use stealth to tackle missions, and objectives that vary with the difficulty setting.
The weapons of Perfect Dark include handgun
Handgun
A handgun is a firearm designed to be held and operated by one hand. This characteristic differentiates handguns as a general class of firearms from long guns such as rifles and shotguns ....
s, rifle
Rifle
A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...
s, submachine gun
Submachine gun
A submachine gun is an automatic carbine, designed to fire pistol cartridges. It combines the automatic fire of a machine gun with the cartridge of a pistol. The submachine gun was invented during World War I , but the apex of its use was during World War II when millions of the weapon type were...
s, a shotgun
Shotgun
A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
, rocket launchers, combat knives
Combat knife
A combat knife is a fighting knife designed solely for military use and primarily intended for hand-to-hand or close combat fighting.Since the end of trench warfare, most military combat knives have been secondarily designed for utility use in addition to their original role as close-quarter combat...
, grenade launcher
Grenade launcher
A grenade launcher or grenade discharger is a weapon that launches a grenade with more accuracy, higher velocity, and to greater distances than a soldier could throw it by hand....
s, various explosives
Explosive material
An explosive material, also called an explosive, is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure...
, and several extraterrestrial weapons. Almost all of the weapons in the game have two modes of fire: a primary mode in which the weapon is used in a typical fashion, and a secondary mode which tends to use the weapon in a more unconventional manner, such as pistol-whipping
Pistol-whipping
Pistol-whipping is the act of using a handgun as a blunt weapon, wielding it as if it were a club or blackjack. "Pistol-whipping" and "to pistol-whip" were reported as "new words" of American speech in 1955, with cited usages from 1940s...
or proximity detonation. Players can carry an unlimited number of weapons, and certain guns can be used in duplicate, one in each hand. Unlike in GoldenEye 007, where the guns were simply dipped below vision during reloading, Perfect Darks weapons all feature unique and visible reload sequences.
Campaign
The player can take part in a number of tutorials and training activities by exploring the Carrington Institute, which acts as the game's central hubOverworld
An overworld is, in a broad sense, an area within a video game that interconnects all its levels or locations. They are mostly common in role-playing games, though this does not exclude other video game genres....
. The most substantial of these activities is the firing range
Shooting range
A shooting range or firing range is a specialized facility designed for firearms practice. Each facility is typically overseen by one or more supervisory personnel, called variously a range master or "RSO – Range Safety Officer" in the United States or a range conducting officer or "RCO" in the UK...
, in which the player's proficiency with each of the game's weapons is tested against specific targets. Completing these trials unlocks so-called "Classic Weapons", which are renamed versions of weapons from GoldenEye 007.
In Perfect Darks solo missions, the player controls Joanna through a series of levels
Level (video gaming)
A level, map, area, or world in a video game is the total space available to the player during the course of completing a discrete objective...
collected together into missions. In each level, the player must complete certain objectives and then exit the stage. The requirements are varied, with many levels requiring the recovery and use of numerous high-tech gadgets. If Joanna is killed or fails an objective, the player must start the level again. Any level can be completed through three distinct difficulty settings (Agent, Special Agent or Perfect Agent), and several aspects, such as the number of objectives that must be completed, the amount of ammunition available, and enemy accuracy and damage, can vary in function of the chosen difficulty. On higher difficulties, the optional "auto-aiming", in which the game corrects slight aiming errors automatically, becomes less effective and bonus items such as protective shields are absent in order to increase the challenge. Once the game has been completed on one difficulty level, the levels can be tackled in any order on the other difficulties, apart from the final mission of the main story arc, which can only be played at a given difficulty after all other missions have been beaten on that difficulty. If all the levels are completed on Perfect Agent difficulty, an additional setting becomes available, titled Perfect Dark. Like the "007" option in GoldenEye 007, this mode allows the player to customise various aspects of enemies, such as their health, their aiming accuracy and the damage they inflict.
Four bonus missions may be unlocked by the player. One, "The Duel", is a holographic training simulation against three opponents, and is unlocked by completing all of the entry-level weapon challenges in the firing range. The other three bonus missions are unlocked by completing the game on each of the three standard difficulties, and allow the player to control other characters — Elvis, Mr. Blonde and a Maian warrior — in scenarios parallel to the main narrative. The gameplay is essentially unchanged, with objectives to accomplish and enemies to battle, but these characters do have some special characteristics, such as Mr. Blonde's cloaking device
Cloaking device
Cloaking devices are advanced stealth technologies still in development that will cause objects, such as spaceships or individuals, to be partially or wholly invisible to parts of the electromagnetic spectrum...
. Players can also unlock cheats by beating the levels within certain time limits. Some cheats, such as "All Weapons", can alternatively be unlocked by using the Perfect Dark Game Boy Color
Game Boy Color
The is Nintendo's successor to the 8-bit Game Boy handheld game console, and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 19, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in Europe and November 27, 1998 in the United Kingdom. It features a color screen and is slightly thicker and taller than...
game and Transfer Pak. The cheats range from "Perfect Darkness", which makes the level pitch dark but gives the player a pair of night vision goggles, to more traditional extras such as Unlimited Ammo.
The game includes a co-operative mode
Cooperative gameplay
Cooperative gameplay is a feature in video games that allows players to work together as teammates. It is distinct from other multiplayer modes, such as competitive multiplayer modes like player versus player or deathmatch...
in which two players, or one player and up to three computer-controlled players, can tackle the missions together. If two humans play, the game uses a split screen
Split screen (computer graphics)
Split screen is a display technique in computer graphics that consists of dividing graphics and/or text into non-movable adjacent parts, typically two or four rectangular areas. This is done in order to allow the simultaneous presentation of related graphical and textual information on a computer...
display, with the option to split horizontally or vertically. Only one human player is required to survive the mission, although all the objectives must still be completed. Additionally, the game also features a "Counter Op" mode, in which one player plays the missions as Joanna while the other takes over the role of an enemy — including their weaponry and low health — and attempts to stop her. The Counter Op player takes control of another enemy if they are killed, and cannot cause the mission to fail directly by, for example, killing Joanna's allies before she meets them.
There are numerous easter eggs
Easter egg (media)
Image:Carl Oswald Rostosky - Zwei Kaninchen und ein Igel 1861.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Example of Easter egg hidden within imagerect 467 383 539 434 desc none...
and strange objects, areas and glitches to fuel the exploration efforts and wild speculation of many gamers. Perhaps the most famous curiosity is the piece of cheese hidden on every level. These were intended to be collectible items, although the purpose of collecting them has never been revealed. This idea was scrapped, but the cheese remained. The face of celebrity Nintendo fan Robin Williams
Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
was used for Daniel Carrington. The face of Shigeru Miyamoto
Shigeru Miyamoto
is a Japanese video game designer and producer. Miyamoto was born and raised in Kyoto Prefecture; the natural surroundings of Kyoto inspired much of Miyamoto's later work....
along with faces of other Nintendo executives and games journalists can be seen on minor characters such as enemy guards in the missions and as selectable avatars in the multiplayer mode.
Multiplayer
The Combat Simulator is Perfect Darks multiplayer mode. A game can be played with up to four human players and eight computer-controlled players. Again, a split-screen is used if more than one human is playing. If three or four humans play, the screen is divided into quarters, with one quarter left blank if necessary. Players enter the game unarmed and with a certain amount of health. Weapons and ammunition are scattered around the level in preset positions. Once a player is killed, they are regenerated elsewhere in the level, once again unarmed. The overall objective of the game is determined by the scenario being played.Scenarios range from the traditional deathmatch
Deathmatch (gaming)
Deathmatch or Player vs All is a widely-used gameplay mode integrated into many shooter and real-time strategy computer games...
mode, where players score points by killing their respective enemies, to popular objective-based games, such as Capture the Flag or King of the Hill
King of the Hill (game)
King of the Hill , is a children's game, the object of which is to stay on top of a large hill or pile as the "King of the Hill"...
. Also notable are Hold the Briefcase, where players must take a briefcase and survive with it for as long as possible. Points are received for every set number of seconds the case is held and, if the player with it is killed, the briefcase is dropped and can be picked by anyone else; or Hacker Central, where players score points by hacking a computer system using a data uplink. Although both the data uplink and computer system are randomly placed in the level, the data uplink can be moved to a new location if the player carrying it is killed; and Pop a Cap, in which one player is labeled as the target, and the other players go after him. The target receives a point for every 60 seconds they stay alive. If the hunters kill the target, they receive two points and the targeted player changes.
Aspects of each game can be customised, such as the chosen arena, the weapons available, and the winning conditions. Players can be grouped into teams or compete individually. In a team game, the players can optionally be shown coloured according to their team. Each game can be customised to a greater degree than was possible in GoldenEye 007s widely acclaimed multiplayer mode. For example, the earlier game only allowed players to specify a pre-set class of weapons, such as "Automatics", but in Perfect Dark, players can individually select the weapons to be included and where each should be located. Shields may be placed in any of the weapon slots or omitted entirely; GoldenEye 007s body armour
Personal armor
Personal armor is the whole of protecting clothing, designed to absorb and/or deflect slashing, bludgeoning, and penetrating attacks. They were historically used to protect soldiers, whereas today, they are also used to protect police forces, private citizens and private security guards or...
was fixed in one position for each level.
Computer controlled bots
Computer game bot
A bot, most prominently in the first-person shooter types , is a type of weak AI expert system software which for each instance of the program controls a player in deathmatch, team deathmatch and/or cooperative human player. Computer bots may play against other bots and/or human players in unison,...
, called "Simulants", can be included in the multiplayer game. The appearance, team affiliation, skill level and playing characteristics of each Simulant can be individually customised. For example, the VengeSim always pursues the player that killed it last, the FistSim will not fire guns but will attack with punches and thrown weapons, while the PeaceSim does not fight at all but merely tries to disarm the other players. Simulants can perform super-human feats on the highest difficulty settings, such as moving faster than the player can. During team matches, a human player can issue specific orders to the Simulants on their team, such as "Defend the Base". The Combat Simulator also includes thirty "Challenges", pre-set games against Simulants which may be tackled by one or more players. The Challenges cover a variety of game types, weapon arrangements and level setups. As a player completes them, additional features — including new weapons, player models and bot difficulties — are unlocked in the Combat Simulator.
At the end of a match, the overall results are shown, alongside information about the individual players' performance. Color-coded "medals" are awarded to the winners in several categories: Accuracy, Head Shots, KillMaster (for achieving the most kills) and Survivor (for suffering the fewest deaths). The game also acknowledges, often humorously, other aspects of performance by awarding messages such as "Best Protected" (for people who frequently use body armour) and "Mostly Harmless" (for particularly ineffective players). Players can also keep track of their performance by creating and saving multiplayer profiles, which also allow players to customise their in-game appearance by selecting the head and body of any of the game's character models (excluding the Skedar), as well as several which do not appear in the single-player mode. Additionally, each profile contains a ranking, ranging from "Beginner: 21" to "Perfect: 1", which is determined based on the accumulation of certain statistics such as number of kills, time played, ammunition used or number of medals earned. A player achieving the rank of "Perfect: 1" is given the message "Username: Entropic
Entropy
Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...
Decay, Password: Zero-Tau
Tau
Tau is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 300.The name in English is pronounced , but in modern Greek it is...
." Rare had originally intended these details to allow access to password-protected parts of the official Perfect Dark website, but these sections were never implemented.
Development
Martin Hollis
Martin Hollis is a computer and video game designer and the founder and CEO of Zoonami. He has worked in the computer and video game industry for over 19 years and was Head of Software at Rare...
, the director of GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark, described the development of the game in an interview with Retro Gamer
Retro Gamer
Retro Gamer is a British magazine, published worldwide, covering retro video games. It was the first commercial magazine to be devoted entirely to the subject. Although launched as a quarterly publication, Retro Gamers soon became a monthly...
magazine, later republished online by NowGamer. He explained that Rare rejected the prospect of working on the GoldenEye sequel Tomorrow Never Dies
Tomorrow Never Dies
Tomorrow Never Dies is the eighteenth spy film in the James Bond series, and the second to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Bruce Feirstein wrote the screenplay, and it was directed by Roger Spottiswoode. It follows Bond as he tries to stop a media mogul from engineering...
"without hesitation", as the development team felt they had spent too much time immersed in the James Bond universe. The decision to make the central character a woman was part of Hollis' belief that there "should be more games centred on women". He also observed that they "wanted her to be quite normal, not with supermodel looks, perhaps a little androgynous
Androgyny
Androgyny is a term derived from the Greek words ανήρ, stem ανδρ- and γυνή , referring to the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics...
." To this end, the team created Joanna Dark, influenced by a number of other fictional heroines: Kim Kimberly from Level 9 Computing
Level 9 Computing
Level 9 was a British computer text adventure game company which produced some of the most advanced games of the 1980s. Founded in 1981 by Mike Austin, Nicholas Austin and Pete Austin, the company produced about 20 games for BBC Micro, Nascom, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Oric, Atari, Lynx 48k, RML...
's text adventure Snowball, the seductive spy Agent X-27 in the 1930s film Dishonored
Dishonored
Dishonored is a 1931 romantic spy film made by Paramount Pictures. It was co-written , directed and edited by Josef von Sternberg...
, the eponymous femme fatale
Femme fatale
A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
of the film Nikita, and FBI agent Dana Scully
Dana Scully
FBI Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, M.D. is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series The X-Files , played by Gillian Anderson. She also appeared in two theatrical films based on the series...
from television series The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
. The name "Joanna Dark" was taken from the French pronunciation of Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...
as "Jeanne d'Arc".
Ghost in the Shell
Ghost in the Shell
is a Japanese multimedia franchise composed of manga, animated films, anime series, video games and novels. It focuses on the activities of the counter-terrorist organization Public Security Section 9 in a futuristic, cyberpunk Japan ....
was a major influence on the character, setting and plot. The name of the in-game company "dataDyne" was inspired by Yoyodyne
Yoyodyne
__notoc__Yoyodyne is the name of several companies in fiction and real life.Yoyodyne is a fictional defense contractor introduced in Thomas Pynchon's V. and featured prominently in his novel The Crying of Lot 49 . Described in the latter book as "a giant of the aerospace industry", Yoyodyne was...
from The Crying of Lot 49
The Crying of Lot 49
The Crying of Lot 49 is a novel by Thomas Pynchon, first published in 1966. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, it is about a woman, Oedipa Maas, possibly unearthing the centuries-old conflict between two mail distribution companies, Thurn und Taxis and the Trystero...
by Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist. For his most praised novel, Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon received the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature...
. Another significant influence on the game's locations was the work of author Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...
. Hollis explained that he and designer David Doak "picked a range of locations we thought would be impressive and architectural, on the model of GoldenEye but sci-fi dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
s... The settings came first; the plot was then constructed by Dave to sew them together". The word "Dark" was chosen for its association with the game's bleak focus on killing. Hollis has noted the similarities to Criterion Software's naming of Black
Black (video game)
Black is a first-person shooter video game, developed by Criterion Games and published by EA. It was released on February 24, 2006 for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 video game consoles...
: "Game developers just like black, nihilism, dystopian futures, the number zero, infinity, spheres, perfection—all that kind of stuff."
The "double slash" symbol in the game's logo was inspired by the Japanese dakuten
Dakuten
, colloquially ten-ten , is a diacritic sign most often used in the Japanese kana syllabaries to indicate that the consonant of a syllable should be pronounced voiced. Handakuten , colloquially maru , is a diacritic used with the kana for syllables starting with h to indicate that they should...
mark, and the bad grammar of the phrase "Perfect Dark" alludes in some degree to Hollis' affection for the way the Japanese use English words in their own games. At one time, Nintendo of Japan
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
considered releasing the game there under the title . "Perfect Dark" does not translate well into Japanese, and the title "Aka to Kuro" was considered sufficiently edgy. However, it was eventually released as , a transliteration of the Western title.
Originally Hollis hoped that the difference between light and dark would be a significant feature of the gameplay, and the title was intended to reflect this focus. A flashlight
Flashlight
A flashlight is a hand-held electric-powered light source. Usually the light source is a small incandescent lightbulb or light-emitting diode...
was implemented by Steve Ellis, who had been responsible for much of the multiplayer mode in GoldenEye, but it was not included in the final game due to the limitations of the N64 hardware (see Game engine section). Hollis remarked that such aims were overambitious: "Even today, you can see game developers struggle to make light and dark foundational from a gameplay perspective. I suspect it will take a few years before significant and pervasive gameplay innovation occurs here." Although not all these intended features were realised, the game does contain more advanced lighting than GoldenEye; lights can be shot out, gunfire illuminates rooms, and the player can use infra-red and night vision goggles
Night vision goggles
A night vision device is an optical instrument that allows images to be produced in levels of light approaching total darkness. They are most often used by the military and law enforcement agencies, but are available to civilian users...
.
Martin Hollis was involved with Perfect Dark for the first fourteen months of its three-year development, during which progress was troubled and long delayed. He explained, "each of us was asking for more than the other could give. This situation ended with my departure, and with very deep regret I was unable to see Perfect Dark to completion". David Doak also left at the end of 1998, and Steve Ellis soon after, to form Free Radical Design
Free Radical Design
Crytek UK, formerly known as Free Radical Design, is a video game developer based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, probably best known for Second Sight and the TimeSplitters series. After going into financial administration, it was announced on February 4 2009 that the studio had been acquired by...
. What followed by those remaining on the project was a comprehensive re-design of the game, with the story and characters being the main items kept intact. Hollis stated that he was impressed by the comprehensive range of multiplayer options, saying "what a vast array of features I never planned". Doak, however, remarked, "GoldenEye pretty much exhausted the performance of the machine. It was hard to push it further. Perfect Dark had some good ideas but was dog slow."
A feature called "Perfect Head", which appeared in previews of the game but was not included in the final product, was intended to take customisation of multiplayer profiles further. This feature allowed the player to place a photograph of their choice onto their in-game character's face, via a Game Boy Camera
Game Boy Camera
The Game Boy Camera, released as in Japan, is an official Nintendo accessory for the handheld Game Boy gaming console and was released in 1998. It is also compatible with the Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light, Game Boy Color, Super Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, and Game Boy Advance SP...
combined with the Nintendo 64
Nintendo 64
The , often referred to as N64, was Nintendo′s third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil...
Transfer Pak. The images taken would be uploaded to the cartridge and manipulated with a simple image editing program to adjust color and skin tone (as the Game Boy Camera was black and white) and add facial features such as facial hair. This texture could then be saved to either the cartridge or a Controller Pak and then loaded onto a player's character in multiplayer, thus creating a virtual representation of the player. Although Rare officially said that the feature was dropped due to "technical issues", the real reason was revealed to be "sensitive issues" surrounding the ability to attack images of real people.
Game engine
The Perfect Dark engineGame engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
is a modified version of that of GoldenEye 007, and many of the gameplay features are unchanged. For instance, the manual aiming system, originally inspired by Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
's Virtua Cop
Virtua Cop
Virtua Cop is a lightgun shooter arcade game created by Sega-AM2, and headed by Yu Suzuki. Its original incarnation was an arcade game in 1994 and it was later ported to the Sega Saturn in 1995, and Microsoft Windows in 1997...
, is graphically enhanced but essentially the same. Players can crouch, duck and lean but notably there is still no ability to jump. Despite this, it is possible to drop from most ledges, a feature rarely used in GoldenEye 007. Most weapons have a finite magazine
Magazine (firearm)
A magazine is an ammunition storage and feeding device within or attached to a repeating firearm. Magazines may be integral to the firearm or removable . The magazine functions by moving the cartridges stored in the magazine into a position where they may be loaded into the chamber by the action...
and must be reloaded after a certain number of shots. Interaction with the environment is via a single "Use" command, which opens doors, activates computers and so on. Enemies and players can disarm each other at close range, and the player can use this feature to steal weapons or knock foes unconscious. Like GoldenEye, Perfect Dark uses location-based damage; for example, a shot to the torso causes more damage than a shot to a limb. However, unlike GoldenEye, in the single-player mode a head shot on a guard is instantly fatal on any difficulty level.
The engine also includes a number of graphical enhancements, the most conspicuous of which is the option to play in hi-res
Image resolution
Image resolution is an umbrella term that describes the detail an image holds. The term applies to raster digital images, film images, and other types of images. Higher resolution means more image detail....
640x480 graphics. The Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak is needed to access the game's campaign and most of the multiplayer features, although a limited subset of the Combat Simulator options are available without the device (around 35% of the game is playable without an Expansion Pak, as estimated on the game's box and Instruction Booklet). The lighting
Lighting
Lighting or illumination is the deliberate application of light to achieve some practical or aesthetic effect. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources such as lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylight...
system was improved so that gunfire and explosions illuminate areas dynamically, and lights can be shot out to create darkened areas. Further progressions from GoldenEye include weapon-specific reloading animations, and more elaborate gore
Graphic violence
Graphic violence is the depiction of especially vivid, brutal and realistic acts of violence in visual media such as literature, film, television, and video games...
effects which allow gunshots to project enemies' blood onto nearby walls and objects. Another graphical novelty is the "dizziness" effect; if a player is punched, poisoned by a throwing knife
Throwing knife
Throwing knives are knives that are specially designed and weighted so that they can be thrown effectively. They are a distinct category from ordinary knives....
or shot with the Tranquilizer gun, their nausea is represented through a motion blur
Motion blur
Motion blur is the apparent streaking of rapidly moving objects in a still image or a sequence of images such as a movie or animation. It results when the image being recorded changes during the recording of a single frame, either due to rapid movement or long exposure.- Photography :When a camera...
red view. The degree of blurring increases with dizziness, and a badly stunned player may have difficulty seeing anything at all. The disadvantage of such detailed graphics is that the frame rate
Frame rate
Frame rate is the frequency at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames. The term applies equally well to computer graphics, video cameras, film cameras, and motion capture systems...
inevitably suffers in some areas; this was one of the main criticisms levelled at the game by reviewers (see Reception section). The same limitation was present in GoldenEye, but the other graphical enhancements in Perfect Dark serve to exacerbate the problem. In multiplayer, the game must render
Rendering (computer graphics)
Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model , by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene...
the scene separately for each player, although at reduced resolution. Nevertheless the frame rate issues arise again, particularly if a large number of Simulants are involved.
Perfect Darks engine offered audio features that had not been available on the N64 before; for example, it was one of the few games to offer Dolby Surround Sound
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...
. Some of the game's audio data was compressed into MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format in order to fit into the relatively small storage space afforded by a cartridge, though the music was sequenced. There is full voice-acting for all the dialogue, and the guards can be heard having conversations amongst themselves about the events of the level. Additionally, both NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
and PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
N64 systems run the game in full screen, without the "letterbox
Letterbox
Letterboxing is the practice of transferring film shot in a widescreen aspect ratio to standard-width video formats while preserving the film's original aspect ratio. The resulting videographic image has mattes above and below it; these mattes are part of the image...
ing" seen in many PAL releases, and there is a 16:9
Aspect ratio (image)
The aspect ratio of an image is the ratio of the width of the image to its height, expressed as two numbers separated by a colon. That is, for an x:y aspect ratio, no matter how big or small the image is, if the width is divided into x units of equal length and the height is measured using this...
option for use on widescreen
Widescreen
Widescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
televisions.
The artificial intelligence of the guards includes the ability to call for help and sound nearby alarms. The guards can be alerted by nearby gunfire, and the various weapons in the game have distinct volumes; for example, guards are less likely to be alerted by suppressed pistols than powerful rifles. Additionally, they are able to throw grenades and, if the player disarms them, draw a secondary weapon. One criticism raised of GoldenEye 007s guards was their weakness at very close range, since their weapons appear to shoot straight through the player. This is resolved in Perfect Dark, whose guards can deliver punches and kicks at close range, inflicting damage and causing dizziness. In GoldenEye, the guards could not see through glass — a feature included deliberately so that the player could spy on foes through windows. This aspect is retained in Perfect Dark, although enemies can now see and shoot over railings. In the later stages of the game, the player encounters Skedar enemies still in reptilian form, and while the Skedar weapons and characteristics are different, their AI is qualitatively the same. The multiplayer Simulants are also considerably more advanced, and exhibit faculties similar to those of a human player but with some limitations. For example, they have the ability to complete multiplayer objectives, such as capturing the briefcase, but they are not able to use some of the weapons, such as remote mines. Also, simulants make no attempt to avoid simple traps such as proximity mines or sentry guns, even on the highest skill setting.
There are a number of bugs
Software bug
A software bug is the common term used to describe an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program's...
and technical issues in the game engine. For example, in the first level, a flaw in the level geometry makes it possible to pass through a supposedly solid wall, allowing the level to be completed on the easiest difficulty in just a few seconds. Also, as with many older FPSs, players can use a technique called straferunning (or "speed-strafing") to exploit a bug in the engine whereby moving diagonal
Diagonal
A diagonal is a line joining two nonconsecutive vertices of a polygon or polyhedron. Informally, any sloping line is called diagonal. The word "diagonal" derives from the Greek διαγώνιος , from dia- and gonia ; it was used by both Strabo and Euclid to refer to a line connecting two vertices of a...
ly allows the player to move faster than by running forwards or sideways alone. This technique is almost essential to achieving some of the target times required to unlock cheats.
Marketing and release
Rare announced in mid-1998 that their follow-up to GoldenEye would appear at that year's E3 as Nintendo's lead game, and claimed that the game, using the same engine as its predecessor, would be available by Christmas 1998. The release date gradually slipped but the game continued to be heavily trailed in magazines, with Nintendo Official MagazineNintendo Official Magazine
Official Nintendo Magazine, or ONM, is a British and Australian video game magazine which covers the Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS and Wii video game consoles released by Nintendo...
predicting that it would be "the best shooting game this century". A working version of the game appeared at the European Computer Trade Show
European Computer Trade Show
The European Computer Trade Show, commonly known as ECTS, was an annual trade show for the European computer and video game industry, which first ran in 1988, with the last event occurring in 2004....
1998; N64 Magazine described the preview as having "the kind of attention to detail that had everyone who saw [it] drooling". Shortly before release, Rare unveiled a number of websites for companies in the game's universe, such as datadyne.com, to promote interest in the game's storyline.
Unlike GoldenEye 007, the game received an M (Mature) rating due to its graphic content and adult language. This caused some controversy, as Nintendo has a reputation for family-friendly games like Mario
Mario (series)
The video game series, alternatively called the series or simply the series, is a series of highly popular and critically acclaimed video games by Nintendo, featuring Nintendo's mascot Mario and, in many games, his brother Luigi. Gameplay in the series often centers around jumping on and...
and Pokémon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...
. The first release of the game came on May 22, 2000 in North America. Nintendo arranged a number of publicity stunts to promote the release, including hiring model Michele Merkin
Michele Merkin
Michele Merkin is an American model and television host.-Early life and beginnings:Merkin was born in San Francisco, California of Swedish and Russian Jewish descent as the youngest child and only daughter of four children. She attended boarding school in England...
, who appeared as the lead character Joanna Dark in commercials and in-store promotions for the game cartridge. Total sales for the game reached 1.3 million copies in the United States. The European release followed on 30 June, and finally the game was released in Japan on 21 October. The Japanese launch was a success, with the sale of 35,000 copies in the first week, and 77,000 in total. Worldwide, Perfect Dark sold 2.5 million copies. As a result, a Player's Choice edition was released in 2001.
A separate Game Boy Color
Game Boy Color
The is Nintendo's successor to the 8-bit Game Boy handheld game console, and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 19, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in Europe and November 27, 1998 in the United Kingdom. It features a color screen and is slightly thicker and taller than...
game set in the same fictional universe
Fictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
, also titled Perfect Dark, was released shortly afterwards in August 2000 to help promote the Nintendo 64 game. While its storyline is different from the Nintendo 64 title, the game does feature a compatibility mode that allows certain features within the Nintendo 64 game to alternatively be unlocked, via a Transfer Pak. On the other hand, a double
Double album
A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....
soundtrack album
Soundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...
, titled Perfect Dark: Dual CD Soundtrack, which features the complete score of the game, was released on November 15, 2000 exclusively through Nintendo Power
Nintendo Power
Nintendo Power magazine is a monthly news and strategy magazine formerly published in-house by Nintendo of America, but now run independently. As of issue #222 , Nintendo contracted publishing duties to Future US, the U.S. subsidiary of British publisher Future.The first issue published was...
magazine.
Reception
Upon release, Perfect Dark received very strong reviews from magazines and websites. Reviewers praised multiple aspects of the game, particularly its graphics, sound and value. GameSpotGameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
's Joe Fielder awarded the game a rating of 9.9 out of 10, making it the highest-reviewed first-person shooter of the site. He commented, "As a single-player or multiplayer FPS experience, Perfect Dark is unparalleled on the console systems". Patrick Klepek of Gaming Age described it as "probably one of the best FPSs to be released in quite a while", while Chi Kong Lui of Game Critics criticised the "weak characters and an unoriginal storyline," but nevertheless judged the "extraordinary amount of high-quality multiplayer modes and features", meant that "the game is still a blast."
The graphics were praised for their dynamic lighting, crisp and varied textures. Aaron Daigle of Game Chronicles enjoyed the "smoothly animated" characters and their location-dependent hit reactions. Similarly, IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
's Matt Casamassina
Matt Casamassina
Matt Casamassina is a video game journalist who worked for IGN until April 23, 2010. In his time at the site, he was the author of many reviews and previews of Nintendo games. He resides in Los Angeles, California, is married and has two daughters, Zoe and Fiona Jade, and a son named Rocco Archer...
observed that the new reload animations and blood effects on walls "are wonderfully animated". The audio was lauded, with Jonathan Nicklas of Gaming Target
Gaming Target
Gaming Target is a website covering video games and gaming culture that was founded on February 17, 1999 by Matt Swider.-History:When it launched in 1999, Gaming Target focused solely on the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color...
comparing it favourably to that of Capcom
Capcom
is a Japanese developer and publisher of video games, known for creating multi-million-selling franchises such as Devil May Cry, Chaos Legion, Street Fighter, Mega Man and Resident Evil. Capcom developed and published Bionic Commando, Lost Planet and Dark Void too, but they are less known. Its...
's survival horror title Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 2, known as in Japan, is a survival horror video game originally released for the PlayStation in 1998. Developed by Capcom as the second installment in the Resident Evil series, its story takes place two months after the events of the first game, Resident Evil...
. The voice cut-scenes, the amount of ambient noises, musical scores, and Dolby Surround Sound
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...
capabilities were said to effectively bring the game to life. IGN went to say that the game "sounds terrific".
Gameplay was generally praised for the excellent artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
of enemies, and complex and varied level design. Chi Kong Lui credited the missions for their "nice mix of timed, patterned, and random events that makes playing through them different and refreshing each time." The enemies were admired for their use of squad tactics, for waiting for the player to come back instead of obediently chasing after them, and for challenging players to duck around a corner for cover. In contrast, Game Revolution
Game Revolution
Game Revolution or GR is a gaming website created in 1996. Based in Berkeley, California, the site includes reviews, previews, a gaming download area, cheats, and a merchandise store, as well as webcomics, screenshots, and videos...
considered that "the number of times you have a hallway filled with dead people is a little ridiculous." The multiplayer and replay value
Replay value
Replay value or replayability is a term found in combination with video games, but it may be also used to describe other kinds of games, movies, music, or theater plays. In video games, the term replay value is used to describe the entertainment value of playing a game more than once...
were seen as the strongest elements of the game. Reviewers noted that the flexibility of options, amount of game modes, "clever" weapons, number of unlockable features, and customizable simulants, give the game "endless replay value". Chi Kong Lui wrote, "Perfect Dark is easily the most advance, elaborate, and entertaining multiplayer gaming experience on any home console."
One frequently-criticised aspect of the game was its low, inconsistent frame rate
Frame rate
Frame rate is the frequency at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames. The term applies equally well to computer graphics, video cameras, film cameras, and motion capture systems...
. This flaw was mentioned in numerous reviews, and by Trigger Happy
Trigger Happy (book)
Trigger Happy is a book by Steven Poole, examining videogames in terms of their aesthetic appeal - what makes certain games more fun to play than others...
author Steven Poole
Steven Poole
-Biography:Poole studied English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and has subsequently written for publications including The Independent, The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times, and the New Statesman...
, who noted, "The game's inadequate temporal resolution—owing to a wrongheaded choice to privilege visual detail over frame-rate—made it unplayable at higher difficulty levels." Poole also described the "lazy sci-fi fetishism" of Joanna Dark's character design as "a blatant and doomed attempt to steal the thunder of Lara Croft
Lara Croft
Lara Croft is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Square Enix video game series Tomb Raider. She is presented as a beautiful, intelligent, and athletic British archaeologist-adventurer who ventures into ancient, hazardous tombs and ruins around the world...
," and argued that she illustrated the challenges of injecting characterisation into the protagonists of first-person shooters, which GoldenEye had avoided by using the already well-known character James Bond.
The overall positive reaction from critics can be gauged by the results of review compilation sites; the game has a Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
rating of 97%, which is considered "universal acclaim", and a GameRankings ratio of 95% as of June 2007. Perfect Dark has also been featured in many "greatest game" lists. In 2006, the game placed 15th on IGN's "Readers Choice Top 100 Games Ever" list; also that year it was rated the 100th best game made on a Nintendo System in Nintendo Power
Nintendo Power
Nintendo Power magazine is a monthly news and strategy magazine formerly published in-house by Nintendo of America, but now run independently. As of issue #222 , Nintendo contracted publishing duties to Future US, the U.S. subsidiary of British publisher Future.The first issue published was...
. In 2007, it placed 86th in IGN's "Top 100 Games of All Time", and 28th in Edges "100 Best Videogames" special issue (a list voted for by readers, Edge staff and gaming industry professionals). Rare was also recognized for its work on the game, as the company was awarded the BAFTA
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
Interactive Entertainment Moving Images Award for 2000 and the Golden Satellite Award for Best Interactive Product in 2001. Perfect Dark also received GameSpot's 2000 "Best Nintendo 64 game of the year" award.
Edge
Edge (magazine)
Edge is a multi-format computer and video game magazine published by Future Publishing in the United Kingdom. It is known for its industry contacts, editorial stance, distinctive anonymous third-person writing style, yearly awards and longevity....
published two retrospective articles on Perfect Dark in 2007 and 2008. The magazine acknowledged that the game's framerate and other dated elements of its design rendered it "nigh-on unplayable", but found its ambitious range of options still praiseworthy: "At release, Perfect Dark was the most comprehensive first-person shooter ever made, and in some ways it still is." Edge found the ambitious mentality which resulted in weapons and bots being "designed for possibilities rather than balance" both one of Perfect Darks most interesting aspects, and the cause of its biggest problem: "Restraint … would have made Perfect Dark a tighter, more focused experience, helped with those framerate issues, and removed almost all of the fun." The magazine concluded that despite Perfect Dark not standing up as a good game to play in 2008, "its currency of ideas and provocation … remains sound."
Legacy
Perfect Dark was the last major first-person shooter game for the Nintendo 64, which was already nearing the end of its lifespan; Nintendo unveiled their new console, the GameCubeNintendo GameCube
The , officially abbreviated to NGC in Japan and GCN in other regions, is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo on September 15, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia...
, at SpaceWorld 2000. The game was also the last appearance of the GoldenEye 007/Perfect Dark engine. Twenty months before Perfect Dark was released, some of the development team left Rare to form Free Radical Design
Free Radical Design
Crytek UK, formerly known as Free Radical Design, is a video game developer based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, probably best known for Second Sight and the TimeSplitters series. After going into financial administration, it was announced on February 4 2009 that the studio had been acquired by...
. This company went on to develop the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
game TimeSplitters
TimeSplitters
TimeSplitters is a series of first-person shooter video games created by Free Radical Design. The games are often compared to Rare's shooters GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark since Free Radical Design was founded by a group of ex-Rare employees who developed these games...
, another first-person shooter based around a completely new engine. TimeSplitters and its sequels
TimeSplitters (series)
TimeSplitters is a series of first-person shooter video games created by Free Radical Design. The games are often compared to Rare's shooters GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark since Free Radical Design was founded by a group of ex-Rare employees who developed these games...
bear several gameplay and presentational similarities to GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark, including a wide range of weapons for multiplayer games, missions with structured objectives, and unlockable options through quick level completions.
Meanwhile Rare began development of a prequel titled Perfect Dark Zero
Perfect Dark Zero
Perfect Dark Zero is a first-person shooter video game developed by Rare and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The game had a difficult development cycle, during which a substantial part of it was initially designed for the Nintendo GameCube...
for the Nintendo GameCube. However, the company was purchased by Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
in 2002, and as a result it was announced that Perfect Dark Zero would be an Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
title. Later it was decided that the game would instead be released for the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
, and it became a launch title for that system. The game retains Perfect Darks first-person perspective and mission objective system, although other features were not carried over. Joanna Dark remains the lead character. The game's multiplayer mode allows many more computer players, thanks to the more advanced Xbox 360 hardware, and can also be played online (via Xbox Live
Xbox Live
Xbox Live is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Corporation. It is currently the only online gaming service on consoles that charges users a fee to play multiplayer gaming. It was first made available to the Xbox system in 2002...
), which was not possible with the Nintendo 64. While Perfect Dark Zero generally received positive reviews from critics, some – such as Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
and Game Informer
Game Informer
Game Informer is an American-based monthly magazine featuring articles, news, strategy, and reviews of popular video games and associated consoles. It was formed in August 1991, when FuncoLand started publishing a six-page magazine, free in all its retail locations...
– found it to be a disappointment.
Perfect Darks worldwide sales were not as great as its predecessor's 8 million, and Joanna Dark did not attain the same status in pop culture as other video game heroines such as Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive. It was originally released in 1996 for the Sega Saturn, with MS-DOS and PlayStation versions following shortly thereafter...
s Lara Croft
Lara Croft
Lara Croft is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Square Enix video game series Tomb Raider. She is presented as a beautiful, intelligent, and athletic British archaeologist-adventurer who ventures into ancient, hazardous tombs and ruins around the world...
. Nevertheless, the game's universe continued to be developed with the release of the novel Perfect Dark: Initial Vector, a Rare-sanctioned paperback by Greg Rucka
Greg Rucka
Gregory "Greg" Rucka is an American comic book writer and novelist, known for his work on such comics as Action Comics, Batwoman: Detective Comics, and the miniseries Superman: World of New Krypton for DC Comics, and for novels such as his Queen & Country series.-Career:Rucka's writing career...
. The novel is set in the time between Perfect Dark Zero and Perfect Dark, and portrays Joanna Dark as an ex-bounty hunter drawn in to the Carrington Institute's battle with dataDyne through her own vendetta against the hyper-corporations. Rucka stated, "If you've played the first game, you're going to get a huge treat, because a lot of stuff that happens in Perfect Dark we set up in the novel." In 2007, two new titles were developed: the comic series Perfect Dark: Janus' Tears, written by Eric Trautmann
Eric Trautmann
Eric S. Trautmann is an American comic book creator. He began his career in publishing as a freelance writer in the print roleplaying game industry in 1992...
, and a second novel by Rucka titled Perfect Dark: Second Front, both of which are direct chronological sequels.
In 2010, Perfect Dark was re-made on the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
as an Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade is a type of video game download distribution available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360, that focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers...
game, including reworked graphics and online features (see Perfect Dark XBLA
Perfect Dark (Xbox Live Arcade)
Perfect Dark is a remake of the critically acclaimed Nintendo 64 video game of the same name. Originally developed by Rare, it was ported by 4J Studios, published by Microsoft Game Studios, and was exclusively released as an Xbox Live Arcade game for the Xbox 360 on March 17, 2010...
). The development was handled by 4J Studios
4J Studios
4J Studios is a video game developer based in Dundee, Scotland. The company has worked with a wide range of publishers including ZeniMax Media, Mojang AB, and Microsoft Game Studios...
, the same studio that previously handled the Xbox Live Arcade ports
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
of Banjo-Kazooie
Banjo-Kazooie
Banjo-Kazooie is a platform and action-adventure video game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was originally released for the Nintendo 64 in 1998...
and Banjo-Tooie
Banjo-Tooie
Banjo-Tooie is a platform and action-adventure hybrid video game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo in 2000 for the Nintendo 64 as a part of the Banjo-Kazooie series. The game is the successor to Banjo-Kazooie and was one of the most anticipated sequels for the Nintendo 64.The game's story...
. The remake was generally well-received: while some critics considered the relatively-unchanged game to be outdated, most agreed that the title was a great revival of a classic. Perfect Dark has also been re-made as a total conversion mod using Valve's Source engine, titled Perfect Dark: Source.